Heavenly Bodies
by Riverflame
Summary: ObiWanQuiGon, PG. 'Strangely, the reality, wounded'


Title: Heavenly Bodies  
Rating: PG   
Notes: written for losselen in the humument ficathon, page 309. Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan.

* * *

_we_ _are sick of the concrete, all the durasteel and transparisteel, only the people seeming old. age is nothing to be afraid of, and yet this is a universe that fears it - you can see. with every breath it takes it holds, every planet it builds up it must preserve until the last drops of life are wrung from it. like blood from a stone, we know, it doesn't happen, except for when it does because everything here is so surprising and new._

_it's the city, you say, and I agree. the whole planet, this city, and not even the jedi temple can keep the spirit out. it's why you always ask for assignments off-planet. you get restless and impatient, absent or tired. I understand. I understand._

----

Obi-Wan does not have any true possessions, so instead of the souvenirs that will decay, or which he will drop or break or lose, he collects memories. This holograph of the sunset, this projection of stone walls, the feel of a violet frond - all will be preserved well enough in his mind, and by the time he forgets the details they will not matter anymore, because they are only pictures from a long time ago, and all the important parts he will have buried deep inside him.

This clay floor, these stone supports lapped by water and lakeweed, mottled with lichen; the height of the horizon and bowl-like feel of the land. This planet, larger than most he has visited; this city, sunken, ancient and holy. These are the things he will remember, but right now he is here, meditating on a colorful reed mat.

Qui-Gon's shadow fallen across his body: he will remember that. Gentle words and summons, too. Ordinary things, but Obi-Wan treasures them, because he knows these moments will not last forever.

----

_we live together, always, and even when we are not beside each other we are still together. together, but separate. so it shall always be. and so shall we feel, not close enough, for the sake of the past and for the sake of the ideal: how things should be, in the Force, in the universe, in us._

----

Together, not together. Like flowerpetals in a meadow, like quantum: two things at once. Together, Obi-Wan thinks, pulling at himself, resisting the urge to pull at the Force, trying to make it true. Together.

----

Death must be comfort. Everything is death, will embody death, will be dead, will be the bringer of death. Every star, every planet, every Master and Padawan. Obi-Wan forces himself to think, the look in Qui-Gon's eyes is death. That sadness, death. That joy, death.

Comfort, he realizes, must be in death.

And in the midst of the fray, when he finds himself flinching at these losses of life, he may sorrow but he must not hurt, for comfort must be in death.

But this ideal, the fierce protection of life, he cannot let go.

"This is the living force," Qui-Gon says, and at first he did not understand. Now, he does. He just does not know how to make himself believe it.

----

Where there is fear there is pain, where there is fear there grows jealousy and hatred, where fear is fostered there too lies bitterness that rots and festers like a neglected wound. Qui-Gon is familiar with all of this, too familiar, but he resists the shadow of regret that creeps over him in the darkest hour, turns instead to his Padawan who is always there, beside him or behind him or within him.

Before him, now, as the red sun sinks down behind the violet plain and they have settled down for the night. Now, his faint silhouette shifting, chest rising and falling with each light breath; this is the Force, Qui-Gon feels instinctively. This is the living force. Stillness. Existence. A hitch and rustle; imperfection. A scar on his hand, Qui-Gon remembers, and knows his own scars and blemishes - these entropic doubts and regrets he clings to and of which must learn to let go.

And so in this darkest, clearest hour he finds it as simple and empty as that: letting go and taking hold of something new.

Qui-Gon knows this as he stands over the boy, young man, his Padawan, shadow cast by dim two-moon light. Obi-Wan's eyes open to see his silhouette, his dark form _death,_ lined in light; his body pulling at Obi-Wan's like magnets, like planetary orbit, like the Force. Like life.

----

_we see each other and this is us, together, this is us with closed spaces. we are dark bodies in the shadowed nighttime, we are sounds whispered between, we are pinprick stars above and we are the wind in the plains. we glow, we glow with light and heat, muted and creased with the folds of our bodies. this stranger space, this twisted leg, this rounded corner of a shoulder, pushing and giving and blurring at the edges. we are molded together like rolled logs of earthen clay and smoothed out with water, pitted with rock, rough in places and roughly done - here is a crevice, a crack; here is a line that circumvents where we are joined._

_but where we are joined we are never truly parted._


End file.
